Bad Creek, page 16
“Let’s just say, not everyone’s idea of fair boundaries is the same.” His hands pulled away from her, and she closed her eyes as the rock slammed against the wood planks again. “Okay, I know what you’re thinking,” he continued. “Why am I whining? I’m luckier than most. Trust me, I know I have a lot to be grateful for. But . . . for me, it’s not worth it. And to them”—he pointed at the white building—“I’m not worth it either.”
She wasn’t expecting any of that. When Gum complained about the Claveys, it made sense. He didn’t match them. Hudson blended in with the country club crowd—perfect polos, perfect posture, and perfect arrogance to match. This conversation could be an act to appeal to her. But if it was a lie, this boy deserved an Oscar. And if he had wanted to kill Iris, he had already missed his perfect chance.
“Sorry, that was a lot,” Hudson said.
“I don’t get it,” Iris said. “If you never fit in with your family, why be a dick to your cousin, instead of being, like, a united front?”
“I think I realized too late . . . and I’m sorry for that. Believe me, I’m sorry for a lot of things.” Why was he so determined to tell her sorry? He was never sorry when he smacked a volleyball in her face. She never asked him to be. Because she would never apologize for all the times she did the same to him.
“Well, I’m not the person you need to apologize to.”
He looked up at her. Yes, his eyes were different than before. There was a little bit of warmth in the center, a drip of green that she only noticed now that she was this close to him. Iris’s cheeks felt warm. What was wrong with her?
“You’re right,” he said. “Everything’s different now. I don’t believe the same things as them anymore, but the impulses are there. I still have a lot to unlearn. I’ll talk to Gum.”
He lifted the rock, ready to crush the last leech.
“You don’t have to kill it,” Iris told him half-heartedly.
“If I don’t, it’ll get someone else.” He slammed the rock, hard. Blood splattered from every side. Some of it belonged to her. And some belonged to victims she’d never know.
Chapter 22 Iris
The blood on Iris’s legs was dry now, but her shirt and shorts were still damp—and so were the ends of her ponytail.
She and Hudson had paddled back toward Paul’s without saying much. He had asked if she needed help lifting her kayak out of the water. When she’d said she was fine on her own, he had let her go. He hadn’t pointed out her flushed cheeks, her shaky hands, but he must have noticed.
Every second that went by, Iris only felt more lost. Hudson hadn’t shown any murderous tendencies, except to leeches. If Helena could show up in the bathtub to whisper ominous warnings to Gum, couldn’t Glory appear to Iris and confirm the name of her killer out loud?
Glory seemed to be leading her toward Hudson, but she wouldn’t have led her to him if he was a bad guy. Glory wouldn’t put her in danger like that.
Which meant Hudson must know something.
When Iris called April to pick her up, Joanna answered. Iris’s moms used to be interchangeable in many ways: both were dependable for rides to theater practice; both were good cooks and good listeners. But since last summer, Joanna had become withdrawn and quick to anger, and Iris didn’t need any more drama today. She’d have rather dealt with April.
Joanna promised she’d be there in five. She sounded perky, like her old self. But there was plenty of time for her good mood to grow moldy.
She couldn’t tell her mom about the sleepwalking or about Hudson. Hanging out with a Clavey boy was certainly against the rules, and going in the lake by herself was even worse. Even before last summer, that wasn’t allowed.
When Iris was in second grade, April had sat her kids down and explained why that rule was created. Even the vague description of Beth’s accident made Joanna upset. Iris never remembered her parents fighting about anything else.
Back then, Iris had been on April’s side. She had felt plenty mature enough to deal with hearing this sad story, certainly mature enough to swim without supervision. She was a big kid who could handle this kind of stuff. And to prove it, she decided she would swim the whole length of the Landings, from the deepest end, where the measly creek swelled into the lake, to the tire swing behind Cabin 12, where the water was too shallow to fish. She’d still wear a life jacket and bring a float in case she got tired. According to Iris’s seven-year-old logic, that would made her brave but also responsible.
She had walked toward the dock in her swimsuit and jumped in. Early in the morning, there was no wake from boaters, so it hadn’t taken her long to swim to her precious willow tree near Cabin 12. On the lap back, she had grabbed the prettiest water lily she could find and carried it with her. She had gently set it on the edge of the dock, to keep it safe as she climbed up the ladder.
That was when she’d noticed Glory standing with her hands on her hips, waiting. Iris had figured her sister would be supportive once she understood the motivation. Instead, Glory had yelled at her like Joanna had yelled at April the day before.
“That’s stupid! Sometimes rules are for a reason!”
Iris had cried like she always did when she got in trouble. But Glory had promised she wouldn’t tell their parents, and she’d kept that promise.
* * *
Joanna didn’t wait for Iris to put on her seat belt before asking, “So, what did you guys do?”
Joanna wanted to know which board games they played, which horror movies they watched, which junk food they gorged themselves on. Iris could have muttered a quick recap, minus the sleepwalking and Hudson. Hudson. Just thinking his name gave her a flutter in the pit of her stomach. She would run into him again. They couldn’t go back to snarky quips whenever they passed the other.
She mentally shook herself, reminding herself that she didn’t have a crush on Hudson fucking Clavey. No way things had gotten that bad.
“Why did you stop being friends with Bruce?” Iris asked instead. She hadn’t known she was going to until it had come out.
Predictably, her mom didn’t answer right away. Iris had crossed a line somehow, and Joanna herself would cross a line if she admitted that.
“Sometimes people drift apart,” Joanna eventually said.
Iris could relate. She’d had a friend in first grade who had become a stranger by the time they were in middle school. Friends could drift apart, of course. But not best friends. When there was a strong bond, you needed something even stronger to sever it. And the Disasters 1.0 had had the strongest bond possible—at least, that was what the stories made it sound like.
Was that really it? Could they have grown apart as they grew up? Was that already happening with Disasters 2.0? The version of Bruce that existed now didn’t exactly look like someone her mom would hang out with. When had that changed?
She thought of the argument she’d overheard after the cookout. Joanna pleading with Paul, Don’t you think I feel guilty enough?
“Did you guys have a fight our something?” Iris pressed.
“Nooooo, nothing like that. When we started college, we said we’d still come back every summer, but Bruce ended up studying abroad. Besides, life happens. We all went to work and then had kids. Bruce didn’t come back for a few years.”
“Was it ’cause of Beth?”
Joanna hesitated. “No, that was before Beth’s accident. He started coming back after.”
“And how was she, before? Were you and Beth drifting apart too?”
“She was my best friend.” Joanna took a deep breath. “You don’t have to be worried about your boys, Iris.”
“That’s not—”
“If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You’re not who you thought you would be when you were five, right? So you can’t expect everyone to turn out how you imagined.” There was an uncomfortable pause before Joanna gave her the Sympathy Smile. “Think you can make it past the groundhog, this year?” she added, referencing the dreaded sixth hole at the mini-golf course. They always played putt-putt on Day Five.
Usually Iris looked forward to playing every year, but beating that demented groundhog was the last thing on her mind. Her thoughts swirled with sketches of blue eyes and water lilies.
* * *
Once at the Landings, Iris changed, put Band-Aids on her leech wounds, and sat in the backseat of the van. Joanna’s good mood hadn’t faded yet. Her moms sang along to “Love Shack,” and Iris stayed inside of her head.
When she stepped into the mini-golf parking lot, the midday sun warmed her face. She wished the morning fog had stayed, to complement the blur in her head. Instead, her armpits were wet, and her thighs uncomfortably rubbed together, and her ponytail was heavy on the back of her neck.
The boys and Paul were waiting by the plastic pirate ship in front of the entrance. The ship was older than their parents, and it looked like it. It had been much grander, much bigger, to Iris when she was a kid. Now she saw it for what it was: the paint was scraped off, and it looked stupid without any masts. It wasn’t much bigger than Paul’s little boat. Every year, the four Disasters lined up in front of the ship for a photo.
April didn’t demand they take one this year.
They walked through the rocky arch with an open treasure chest on the side, holding the putters. The balls were in a much less impressive bucket, right next to them. Paul joked about practicing his swing lately, as if finally, after thirty years, he would beat Joanna. The adults didn’t act like they had anything to hide.
And they didn’t act like Glory was dead.
“Iris, did you hear me?” April asked. Iris looked up at her. Her mom had been talking to her, and she’d tuned her out. “What color ball do you want? They’re out of green.”
Iris looked at the selection. There were only white and red left, and though Glory wasn’t here to play, Iris couldn’t take her color.
“White,” she said.
Her throat tightened, but she had to do this.
The pirate motifs ended once they stepped onto the sidewalk path. Hole one was carnival-themed—tiny statues of lions and elephants and juggling clowns dotted the worn turf.
Per usual, Iris went first because she was the youngest. Then Gum, who was six months older. Then Aidan, who was almost a year older than Gum. Then it would have been Glory’s turn, as she was a whole year older than Aidan.
Iris did okay.
Gum hit the ball too hard for each stroke.
Aidan would have done better if he’d actually tried.
Glory was dead.
They moved on to the next hole without waiting for the adults to have their turns. Gum had the scorecard, which was probably for the best. If Iris saw the blank space where her sister’s name ought to be, she would unravel even faster. Once they were two holes ahead of their parents, Aidan spoke for the first time that day.
“Hudson wasn’t at brunch.”
Of course he wasn’t. He had been with Iris. Now would be a good time to tell them, but Aidan would be pissed at her, and Gum hardly looked like he was listening. He was doodling on the scorecard.
Iris unsuccessfully tried to hit the ball around the miniature shipwreck, then sat on the bench. “Gum, it’s your turn,” she told him.
He glanced up as if breaking from a trance. He set the scorecard beside her and picked his putter up from the ground. He had drawn the same shape over and over again: a double cross with crescents at the sides.
“Dude,” she said, “why are you drawing this?”
He shrugged and smacked his ball right up against the plastic ship. “I don’t know. I got bored.”
“We really need to find out what it means,” Iris said. She looked at Aidan. “Did you ask your dad?”
“Why?”
“Hasn’t he done a lot of research on occult stuff?”
Paul’s office was full of old books and maps and printouts from the internet tacked onto the walls. Iris hardly ever went in. That was where Paul was holed up when he was home, searching for inspiration for his second film, which would probably live in development limbo forever.
“My dad doesn’t know anything, okay?” Aidan sniped. “Just drop it.”
“I’m not accusing him of anything.” Iris said. She loved Paul; he was like her bonus uncle. And clearly Joanna and he had gotten over their beef from a few days ago. When she turned to see how close the others were, she accidentally made eye contact with Joanna, who smiled and gave her daughter a thumbs-up.
Iris walked to the hole with the swinging log and plastic beavers. As she stepped over a stream, the white ball slipped out of her grip. It tumbled down the fake waterfall, into a muddy lagoon. “Crap.”
She could return to the first hole and ask an employee for a replacement ball, but it would take too much time. Iris took a deep breath and knelt above the lagoon; the water so opaque she could barely make out the shapes of the balls underneath. She put her hand in the slimy water and tried not to think about all the bacteria in it.
The first ball she grabbed was red. She tossed it back in.
The next ball she found was also red.
And so was the next.
“Iris! Grab one before the old people catch up!” Gum shouted.
Paul called out, “Hey!”
She started using both hands, grabbing several golf balls at once. Red, red, red, red. Each was warm as flesh. They shouldn’t have been warm. The water was freezing. This was a sign. It had to be.
“Please tell me,” Iris whispered. There was a reason her usual ball color was out; there was a reason her Schwinn had had a flat tire.
“Please tell me,” Iris begged. To the lagoon. To God. To the universe. To Glory, if she could hear her, wherever she was.
Glory would be able to solve this.
Glory would be able to solve this.
That was it, wasn’t it? She understood it now. Glory was asking Iris to take her color. To take her place. If Iris relinquished herself to her sister, she could act as Glory’s conduit. The answer had always been obvious.
Glory was the only one who could solve her own murder.
Iris plucked a red ball from the water and walked back up the hill.
“You guys,” she said. “I have an idea. How to trigger it again.”
“Trigger what?” Aidan looked pissed.
“The connection between me and Glory.”
“How do you know it’s her talking to you?” Gum asked. He pushed the swinging log to go faster as Iris dropped the red ball into position. “What if it’s something else? Glory was sleepwalking. It sounds like Helena might have been too—”
“It’s her,” Iris said. “I can’t explain it, I can just feel it.”
Then she hit the ball without hesitation. It effortlessly rolled past the swinging log.
Hole in one.
Chapter 23 Gum
Cross. Slash. Half circle. Half circle. Iris and Aidan probably didn’t notice what Gum was carving into his leg with his fingernails, and he preferred to keep it that way. They were getting along, for the first time this summer. Gum wasn’t going to ruin their night.
The sun stubbornly hovered above the horizon. Fluorescent orange and pink reflected on the water. Iris’s Bluetooth speaker blasted the playlist Glory had painstakingly curated for them last summer. Gum had to admit Glory had good taste in music. But he still considered “accidently” kicking the speaker off the dock. Anything could summon her these days. He’d rather listen to the Richardsons blabber on about how life was better during the Reagan administration than anything related to Glory Garren.
“Savi says the party’s starting at eight tomorrow,” Iris said. Her feet dangled over the water, like she was just daring something to drag her under. At this point, that was probably her goal. After all, her new brilliant plan was to re-create Glory’s last night alive.
And Aidan, for God knows what reason, was fine with it.
“We should go at nine,” Aidan said. He was leaning over Iris’s phone, reading through her messages with Savi Traxler. He too was only inches from the water. This morning he’d called her delusional, and now he was more than happy to cosign on her theory.
Gum sat cross-legged on the other side of the Landing’s dock, digging his ragged nails into the skin right above his tattoo. Cross. Slash. Half circle. Half circle. He drew blood, wiped it with his palm, and started on the other leg.
“M’kay,” Iris agreed. “I’ll go shopping with my moms tomorrow. They’re going into Mackinac anyway.”
“Get a red top,” Aidan said. “Puffy sleeves.”
“Yeah. I know the one.”
“And a white skirt.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
Gum should’ve stopped them. He should’ve reminded them that they already knew it was going to happen again. It’s not over, Glory had warned. Maybe they’d listen if he admitted the truth about Glory. If he admitted he had stolen Iris’s putt-putt ball. When the whispers told him to snag it, he didn’t resist, even though the voice sounded nothing like Glory anymore. Now his sin weighed a trillion tons in his shorts pocket. But he couldn’t confess.
And he couldn’t stop drawing that stupid symbol.
He let them go on like that, until the sun had finally disappeared behind the pines, casting the just barely visible crucifix in shadow. Still, they weren’t finished. They walked the stretch of the Landings, planning tomorrow night like it was a heist. Gum numbly followed, a trickle of blood running down to his knees.
Iris and Aidan stopped when they reached their willow tree, where the water was higher than it should have been. Iris took off her sandals and dipped her feet in.
Stop stop stop, he wanted to yell. But what was the point? No one could stop a determined Garren girl. And every time the truth begged to escape his lips, he felt his throat tighten.
Aidan swatted a mosquito. “What happened to the tire swing?”
